Not In My Name: Response to Alex Ryvchin

Michael BrullABC Religion and Ethics
22 Aug 2014

Ryvchin says it's racist to oppose the existence of a Jewish state, but is unperturbed when Netanyahu rejects the possibility of a Palestinian state. This is shameful; it's not anti-Semitic to say so.
Credit: yakub88 / Shutterstock.com

In responding to Alex Ryvchin's article, I hardly know where to begin. It is so full of distortions and dishonesty - particularly the egregious attack on my friend Peter Slezak - that part of me is tempted to throw up my hands in disgust.

So before I directly respond, let me note a more significant point, which this discussion may otherwise obscure.

The letters did not dwell at length on our identities, but the identities of the signatories made a symbolic point. It doesn't matter whether one is Jewish or Palestinian, or Aboriginal for that matter. We were not motivated by support for this or that nationality. Our concern was - and is - human rights.

Anyone who cares about human rights and the factual record should be appalled at what Israel has done to Gaza. Even a pretence of even-handedness between the two sides is shocking, because the destruction is not even-handed at all. Every relevant human rights organisation and United Nations body - and even avowedly politically neutral organisations like the Red Cross - have pleaded with Israel and the world to end the fighting, because of the suffering that has been inflicted on the entire population of Gaza.

There has been no response to any of my articles, or to the factual record laid out in the open letters I co-signed. And the reason is simple: there is no response. Not to the issues I have tried to document at length, and certainly not to the human rights organisations which have expressed shock at the scale of the disaster in Gaza. It is true that every human rights organisation also condemns those Palestinians who fire indiscriminate rockets at Israel. Yet the fact is that, while they emotionally terrorise Israelis within reach of the rockets, they have caused very few casualties, and extremely little physical damage, while Gaza's infrastructure, its residential homes, its agricultural land and so on, have sustained immense damage.

Ryvchin does not want to discuss these issues. Instead, he wants to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict solely through the lens of anti-Semitism. So, let me turn to more direct consideration of his comments.

Firstly, we should acknowledge what is common ground. Ryvchin notes that there have been anti-Semitic incidents in Australia and around the world since the attack on Gaza began. He says - rightly - that these incidents should be condemned. What he strangely chooses not to mention is that anti-Semitism has been widely condemned, not just by supporters of Israel, but by virtually every relevant public figure, including those dreaded critics of the Israeli government.

For example, a week before Ryvchin's article, I wrote an article in which I condemned the same anti-Semitic incidents as Ryvchin, and observed: "There is no reason that one cannot oppose both the Israeli government and anti-Semitism equally." In fact, if one discards Ryvchin's exaggerated rhetoric, one finds that I criticised many of the same things Ryvchin did: those who deny Jews are a people, the prolific use of Nazi symbols at protests and so on. Compare, for example, what I wrote:

"So far as I'm aware, none of the major protests for Gaza have included speeches by Hizb ut-Tahrir. However, when protests for Gaza include people waving the black flag of jihad, or even the flag of Hezbollah, and they chant 'from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free', it is unlikely that they, or other Islamist contingents, do so in the hope that there will one day be a secular democracy in historic Palestine ... However, at least some protesters chanting this may be expected to share Hizb ut-Tahrir's agenda, which is for a Palestine which is free: free of Jews."

To what Ryvchin wrote:

"[S]upport for a range of terrorist organisations at anti-Israel rallies, from Hamas to the Islamic State (IS), leaves little doubt as to the protester's intentions. It is self-evident that a supporter of the IS brand of roaming, barbaric jihadism does not foresee a Palestinian State coexisting with the Jewish national home. Most likely, the flag-bearer does not envisage Jewish existence in any form."

He even cites the same incidents that I did from 1991 of attacks on synagogues and kindergartens. If, in composing his article, Ryvchin pored over mine and then escalated his rhetoric about how much more evil and representative each anti-Semitic incident was, the result would have been similar - with a few significant differences.

I noted that the two most prominent Palestinian intellectuals in Australia - Samah Sabawi and Randa Abdel Fattah - have vocally condemned anti-Semitism, and quoted Randa at length on this point. In one of the rare instances of a Palestinian being allowed to address a major media audience, Fahad Ali used the opportunity to condemn anti-Semitism.

Ryvchin ignores these facts, and instead claims that the "anti-Israel" movement (Who? What?) vilifies Jews, and "has sought to recruit individuals identifying as Jews" to legitimise its anti-Semitism. Which Jews? Who supports anti-Semitism? Ryvchin doesn't bother to name these sinister people, because the point is not critical analysis. The point is to smear opposition to Israel's attack on Gaza as just another form of anti-Semitism - a more sophisticated version of the threats hurled at Jewish children on the bus ride home. He says Jews lend their names and credentials to anti-Semites - a vicious charge, and leaves it to reader's imaginations to figure out what anti-Semitism these unnamed figures support. The point of this is simple: it is to conflate all opposition to Israel, even by Jewish people, with anti-Semitism. It is obscene, and it is unacceptable, and it is a cheap exploitation of real issues, simply to serve a foreign government that is committing unspeakable crimes against the Palestinians.

Note also Ryvchin's claim about those who offer "support or apologetics" for Hamas. I defy Ryvchin to name one public supporter of Hamas anywhere: any group, any public commentator - anyone - who supports Hamas. They simply do not exist in Australia. It is a fact that Australia lists Hamas's military wing as a terrorist organisation. It does not, however, list the political wing of Hamas as a terrorist organisation. By the logic of the Israeli government, the Australian government is in the camp of those who offer "apologetics" for Hamas.

This is no trivial or glib point. The Goldstone Report chronicles at length Israel's expansive definition of Hamas and its "supporting infrastructure," which is used to legitimise its bombardment of civilian targets. Human rights organisations consider these attacks war crimes - the Israeli government, and its lackeys, simply regard the Israeli army as attacking terrorist infrastructure. The Goldstone Report observed that this supporting infrastructure "appears to encompass effectively the population of Gaza." Communal Jewish organisations have distributed graphics from the Israeli army explicitly justifying the bombing of residential areas, hospitals, ambulances, schools and mosques. Some may consider objecting to the destruction of these manifestly civilian targets as "apologetics" for Hamas. Others may regard it as basic humanity.

Consider Ryvchin's most appalling example of conflating anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel. An Israeli activist said that the people of Gaza "need to shout no" to the prospect of more fighting between Israel and Hamas. Peter Slezak responded by suggesting "Perhaps people in Israel & diaspora Jews need to shout 'no'. Not enough blood on your hands yet?" The point was somewhat mundane: if Gazans should be expected to oppose more war, why shouldn't Israelis and diaspora Jews - whose major organisations have overwhelmingly supported the war on Gaza - also be expected to oppose more fighting? Ryvchin asked if diaspora Jews are "fair game just because you object to some policies of the State of Israel?" Peter replied: "Yes, diaspora Jews are fair game because of their influence & militant support for crimes of the Jewish state."

In Ryvchin's appalling rendition, this became:

"One such activist expressed this point explicitly in a tweet the day after a recent antisemitic attack on Jewish primary school children on a Sydney school bus. He proclaimed that Jews living outside Israel 'are fair game'."

Plainly, Ryvchin's point is that Peter supports attacks on school children. Anyone who reads the exchange would see Peter's point that Gazans, Israelis and diaspora Jews should all equally say "no" to more fighting. But Ryvchin evidently thinks Gazans should oppose more fighting, but no such moral obligations fall on anyone else. He knows perfectly well Peter doesn't support anti-Semitism or attacks on school children, but shamelessly implied that Peter does. This kind of intellectual dishonesty is somewhat representative of the style of the major Jewish organisations, who routinely conflate criticism of Israel, and the organisations which support everything it does, with anti-Semitism.

An obvious example of this is Ryvchin's extensive remarks on why Nazi comparisons are inappropriate, that there is "no greater insult" than to "mock or minimise" our national tragedy, or to "exploit it for rhetorical value" because it "falsely equates descendants of murdered Jews to the tormentors of their forebears." In 2009, a (Christian) AIJAC writer compared me to the Nazis. He wrote: "The settlers and the soldiers are not the reason there is no Palestinian state. Don't worry, Michael Brull, the new Palestinian state will be Judenrein enough for you." I raised this constantly. I was - and remain - disgusted, for reasons that Ryvchin should understand. But no one from any of the major Jewish organisations would say a critical word on the subject. A year later, he offered a less public, and brazenly insincere apology.

I could give other examples: the constant Nazi comparisons made by the Israeli government, like comparing the Iranian government to the Nazis. The major Jewish organisations have never expressed reservations about these comparisons. Evidently, the only question for some people is whether Nazi comparisons serve the interests of the Israeli government.

Some may think I am exaggerating the deference of Jewish communal organisations like Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ) - which Ryvchin represents - to the Israeli government. I am not. During a panel in which I participated at Limmud Oz last year, Yair Miller (Vice President of ECAJ and President of NSW Jewish Board of Deputies at the time) admitted that during times of conflict, his and other similar organisations received talking points from the Israeli government. They are completely servile to whoever is in power, which is why you find Ryvchin responding in the Guardian to my criticisms of Israeli settlements in the West Bank, by saying how unfair such criticisms of Israel at the UN are, and that Australia is simply rejecting "one-sidedness" on such issues.

Which brings me to Ryvchin's rendition of Australian-Jewish opinion. He inaccurately caricatures the findings of Gen08, the only recent survey on Australian Jewish opinion. 29% of Australian Jews thought Israel should dismantle "all or most" settlements in the West Bank as part of a "permanent settlement." About 50% said Israel should either dismantle some (18%), few or none (around 30%), and the rest didn't know or declined to answer. Though the definition of Zionism was absurdly expansive, only 80% of respondents identified as Zionists, while 13% did not and 7% didn't know or declined to answer. Ryvchin thus represents perhaps 20% of the community as practically non-existent, referring to Jews critical of the Israeli government as "miniscule" in number, and that we represent "virtually no one," citing Philip Mendes to the effect that such Jews represent less than 1% of the community. How would they know? Clearly, such assertions are not based on the only survey evidence we have, which he elected not to cite.

This point is worth stressing. Ryvchin writes his article as an official representative of ECAJ, the official body representing all Jews in Australia. He does so, while writing that those who hold contrary views on Israel basically don't exist and represent no one, collude with anti-Semites and so on. Critics of the Israeli government never claim to represent anyone else. We speak on our own behalf. It is strange, perverse even, that Ryvchin doesn't get this. He writes shamelessly in defence of everything the Israeli government does, and libels Jews who are critical of his organisation or the Israeli government, and then acts horrified and appalled when Jews say "not in my name." He acts mystified by the fact that some Jews want to distance themselves from what Israel does, when he does all he can in his professional capacity to conflate Australian Jews with support for the Israeli government.

There is one final point I would like to make. Ryvchin says that those who deny the rights to Palestinian self-determination are condemned as racist, yet there are those who "make the same claim about the Jewish people." He says that this is "racism, not merely hypocrisy," and that opposing a Jewish state is "antisemitism," citing Yehuda Bauer. It is worth untangling this point.

There are some people who advocate a "one-state solution" to the conflict, rather than a two state solution (I favour the latter - with my favoured end-goal the abolition of all states). Those, like Antony Loewenstein, who advocate one state, support a secular democracy, or even a bi-national state. This would provide for Jewish self-determination, but simply in another form. In the current state of affairs, however, the Palestinians under occupation are denied all self-determination. They are ruled over by the Israeli government, without having the right democratically to control or influence that government, and live under Israeli military law in the West Bank and a savage blockade in Gaza. If Israel granted the Palestinians over whom it rules the same rights as Israeli citizens, that would mean a one-state solution, which Ryvchin opposes. The alternative - on which the world has all but reached consensus (with the exception of Israel, the United States, occasionally Australia, and a few other small countries) - is an end to the occupation and the Palestinians being allowed to rule themselves in Gaza and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem.

Will this happen? The Israeli government has explicitly said no. Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu said in July this year: "I think the Israeli people understand now what I always say: that there cannot be a situation, under any agreement, in which we relinquish security control of the territory west of the River Jordan." No situation, ever. What has Ryvchin had to say about this? Nothing. Even though one might think Ryvchin was obsessed with outdated and irrelevant charters, he seemingly doesn't mention the fact that the Likud Charter explicitly rejects establishing a Palestinian state.

Isn't that strange? That Ryvchin calls it racist to oppose the existence of a Jewish state, but seemingly doesn't regard it as racist that the Israeli government flatly rejects the idea of allowing a Palestinian state? That he writes an article denouncing one, but ignores the other - as well as the fact that there has never been a Palestinian state, and that Israel has been denying the Palestinians their right of self-determination since 1967?

It's not strange. It's the style of ECAJ. It is shameful. It is not anti-Semitic to say so, and it is not anti-Semitic to defend the rights of Palestinians. And it is entirely appropriate for Jews to respond to the likes of Ryvchin by saying: you do not represent us. Not in my name.

Michael Brull writes for a range of publications, including the Guardian, the National Times, Crikey, ABC's The Drum and New Matilda. He has recently completed a Juris Doctor at the University of New South Wales.

A Dose of Reality :

In a political party's stated aim of eliminating an occupied land (Palestine) as a reality and possibility, and a stated aim of an oppressed and segregated people to win back their land.

Part of the Lukid charter is to separate and destroy - once, all Palestinian land was contiguous - however it is now fragmented, with those fragments slowly being separated within themselves.

In a repetition of history, a "cease fire" is declared in Gaza, immediately, Israel announces an intention to strip Palestinians of yet more land from the West Bank. Is this to invoke a "response" to "justify" an intended "response" (murder of more Palestinians)? Perhaps if tracts of the West Bank is destroyed the "law" in Israel (that land must be "used" otherwise it reverts to the Israeli Government) will provide, yet again, a "legal case" for the land to be stolen.

By the way - as we touch on the slaughter of Gaza, has anyone noticed that the actual murderers of the three Israeli boys - the "trigger" for the onslaught was never even investigated? Though it was neat the West Bank and attack was immediately made on Gaza (knowing that a response of little more than "fireworks" would be made).

Yes - there is a great deal of difference in a charter (of apartheid, destruction and oppression) that is being carried out - to the point where it is now nearly completed, and a struggle in which they simply die while their oppressors watch from the hilltops cheering with glee, or happily sing songs of dead children in the streets.

While a racist world seems to agree how the most militarily powerful nation in the area needs to "fight for it's life" against women and children hiding in UN shelters.

Anonymous :

04 Sep 2014 12:51:54am

Here is the map proposed at Camp David 2000 and rejected by the Palestinians. With all due respect, it does not look "fragmented" to me. The source is Dennis Ross. He was there as an intermediary and led President Clinton's team.

Rashid.M :

"The point of this is simple: it is to conflate all opposition to Israel, even by Jewish people, with anti-Semitism"

ECAJ appears to determine its position by according itself with whatever approach or rationale is being adopted by the Israeli government. They have simply become its mouthpiece.

The use of the label 'anti-Semite', which once could have precisely described the irrational bigotry and subjective inferiority/superiority inherent in racism, is now a term debased by partisanship and ideology.

"Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu is acting under Kerry's obsessive pressure, which may have anti-Semitic undertones" - Knesset member Moti Yogev reacts to US Secretary of State John Kerry's perceived pressure on Israel to negotiate with Palestinians.http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Bayit-Yehudi-MK-Kerry-pressure-on-Israel-has-anti-Semitic-undertones-339879

“Anyone who proposes to boycott Israel — that’s an unacceptable approach. It’s a new form of anti-Semitism. Make no mistake: It’s not friendly criticism”.- Israeli Economy Minister Naftali Bennett dismisses Yogev’s politically sensitive charge of anti-Semitism against Kerry, but proceeds to lay it against anyone who dares to boycott Israel. http://www.timesofisrael.com/john-kerry-isnt-an-anti-semite-bennett-says/#ixzz3AZdUC9t3

Anonynmous :

28 Aug 2014 3:34:22am

This thing of quoting lower government officialsand legislative members to support points is kind of silly. It would like quoting the French minister of finance about French foreign policy, or a British back-bencher on British foreign policy. It is not very convincing.

Rashid.M :

28 Aug 2014 9:39:08pm

The post was about the use of the term anti Semitism. The seniority of the government official was not relevant to the point being made. It did not require a statement from a 'Minister of anti Semitism' to be understood.

Cynthia :

25 Aug 2014 11:30:35am

Michael Brull, since you raise the subject of your own Judaism, I guess it's fair game for a question. How does that Judaism express in your life? You're an avowed atheist, so I suppose it isn't in the synagogue worship of God. You oppose national states, so I suppose it isn't support of Israel, and you're clearly not a Zionist in the classical sense of Jews having a homeland in the Middle East. Are you a Torah scholar? A member of a Jewish community center? A chevra kadisha? Did you have a bar mitzvah? A Jewish education? Or are you Jewish simply by virtue of the roll of the dice of genetics, having a Jewish mother but no other affiliation? Please fill in; I bet I am not the only one who is curious.

DaveM :

24 Aug 2014 1:05:48pm

Let's compare Israel's military actions to those of NATO, the USA and the UK, forces which have conducted significant military activity lately and are generally considered to be as respectful of human rights as can be hoped for in wartime.

An example of NATO "proportionality" (defined as the acceptable cost to civilian life to achieve a military objective), backed by an ICJ ruling: During the Kosovo campaign NATO bombers destroyed a TV broadcasting station which acted as a "propaganda source" that had redundant backups, causing an outage of propaganda for approximately two hours. This involved the deaths of 16 civilians. That was deemed acceptable to NATO and all "human rights" groups. It's a very high bar.

More broadly, in Iraq and Afghanistan the US and UK killed around three civilians for every combatant. Sometimes more, rarely less.

In the last three Gaza operations, both Hamas and the IDF agree that the Israelis have killed just about one combatant for every civilian (usually 55-60% combatants to 45-40% civilians). This is unheard of in complex, urban warfare. Hamas, of course, took 12-18 months to honestly report their losses - at the time they claimed everyone was "civilian".

Notwithstanding the inaccurate reporting coming out of Gaza (see a recent Forbes article for a lengthy and well-supported critique) analysis of casualties is indicating that in the current war in Gaza, like the last two, nearly 50% combatant casualties on the Palestinians' sides.

Look up Col Richard Kemp's testimony, the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center, and stop reflexively assuming that the IDF isn't at least as professional and moral as our own respected military institutions.

Filipio :

26 Aug 2014 11:58:51pm

Yuli Novak, former Israeli air force officer, has provided a compelling comentary on shifting ideas of proportionality in Israel.

She noted the use in 2002 of a one tonne bomb targeting the Gaza home of Salah Shehadeh, then head of the military wing of Hamas, generated considerable concern in Israel as a consequence of killing not only Shehadeh but also 14 civilians including eight children.

Public sentiment was shaken; a group of reservist pilots opposed such 'elimination' actions despite insistence from the IDF that the attack was 'operationally justified'.

Eventually, the IDF acknowledged the assault on Shehadeh’s house had been wrong, a failure in intelligence. Had they known there were civilians in the home the operation would not have been carried out, the IDF stated.

Seven years later, during Operation Cast Lead, there was widespread dropping of bombs over densely populated areas in the Gaza Strip. In the recent Operation Protective Edge, the air force boasted of having released over 100 one-tonne bombs on Gaza.

Yuli observes that what was once an exception is now accepted national policy. No-one bothers to make excuses. And the Israeli public, she notes, remains indifferent.

She asks:"From year to year, from one military operation to another, our moral red lines are stretching further away. Where will they be in the next operation? Where will they be 10 years from now?"

Novelactivist :

27 Aug 2014 10:14:23am

I think it is entirely fair to compare Israel's actions to those of NATO, etc. However, I think for a more accurate perspective we should compare all conflicts. How many civilians have died in the Syrian conflict? In the current Iraqi conflict? At the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan?

Anonynmous :

28 Aug 2014 3:36:08am

Well said. I've never heard of a military making phone calls, dropping leaflets, and sending "knock" small missiles to alert civilians of an impending attack. Would that the Syrian army would have done that in Aleppo.

Anonymous :

29 Aug 2014 9:54:01am

Rashid, have you ever heard of another military doing that?

In a Gaza-Israel context, think of the lives that could have been saved if Hamas suicide bombers made cell phone calls to people on Israeli busses before they got on to blow them up, or maybe slingshotted some rocks against the windows for a minute before they got it.

Or maybe telephoned the three young men and told them that they would be the target of kidnappings. That would have been nice and maybe saved three lives, too.

Anonymous :

24 Aug 2014 12:27:53am

Read both articles. Ryvchin's makes far more sense. Anyone who has tracked Brull's writing here can see that he has a history of simply ignoring what's inconvenient for him. For example, he says that "there has been no response" to his articles and the moral/legal/political issues he addresses,

As my grandfather would say, "Bollocks!"

There are 43 comments that follow the open letter to Turnbull that Brull wrote with his two associates, many of them challenging his point of view and the facts. Most compelling is how those comments show how inflammatory and false is the charge of Israeli genocide in Gaza. To summarize, Gaza's population has increased by a factor of five since the 1967 war. It's growing far faster than Israel's. If that's an indicator of genocidal policies, it's the strangest genocide in human history.

Brull wanted Rychin to name a supporter of Hamas. He said there were none. Okay. Let's see.... Turkey? Qatar? Iran? And seriously, all the focus on the alleged crimes of Israel, in an article published on the same day that Hamas summarily executed 18 of its own people for "collaboration," as well as acknowledged that it was responsible for kidnapping those three Jewish young men in the West Bank? How does that look? It looks to any reasonable observer like tacit support of Hamas.

Can't a trio of writers like Brull and his open letter compatriots, just once, write a piece that says without comparisons to others what needs to be said: Hamas is scum. Scum. Disgusting, murderous, value-free, unaccountable, ceasefire-shattering, firing-from-near-big-hotels-housing--foreign--journalist scum? How tough would that be, really?

Look, Michael Brull. Ryvchin said it clearly and it's true. Nowhere will you find more criticism of Israel than inside Israel itself. And the fact is, plenty of Jews around the world oppose Israel's approach to the Gaza fighting. You're one, for example,. But where are the vocal Muslim critics of Hamas among Muslims? Where is even a single demonstration in the Arab world that says what is true: Hamas is scum!

I will tell you this: they are not in the streets of Gaza. Not because they don't exist. Oh, they exist. They're helping the Israelis target terror leaders at great risk to their own lives. But they won't go public for fear of ending up just like the 18 people summarily executed yesterday. Dead. May they rest in peace.

On the Wider Web

The violence, and responses to it, have raised a slew of questions. Is it helpful, or even accurate, to characterize these killings as religiously motivated? How have the attack and responses to it helped to construct or entrench the identities said to be in conflict? Should the events be understood in the context of France's history of satire or its history of colonialism? Can the two be separated in this case? What is the significance of the willingness of many not only to affirm free expression, but also to identify themselves with the magazine? Are there limits to the freedom of expression?

The Islamic State is no mere collection of psychopaths. It is a religious group with carefully considered beliefs, among them that it is a key agent of the coming apocalypse. The Islamic State awaits the army of "Rome," whose defeat at Dabiq, Syria, will initiate the countdown to the apocalypse.

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